Happy 40th birthday, Dad! Now what’s for breakfast?

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

Aug. 19, 2010

Time is precious. Time is elusive and a difficult concept to comprehend, especially for a child. Parents and teachers seem ancient, the days between putting textbooks away for the summer and slipping into a new pair of shoes for the first day of school feel like seconds, and the wait for a Pop-Tart to show itself from the toaster is interminable.

As kids, we learn about time — the function of the clock’s hands, the Earth on its axis, our trip around the sun — but what does that mean to a child? It doesn’t make sense to want nothing but sleep when it’s time for school and then spring out of bed at first light for Saturday morning cartoons.

Children need a handle when it comes to the fickleness of time; dinner at 6, bed at 9. This they understand. They may not like it, but they get it.

I found out last weekend, when I celebrated my 40th birthday, another aspect of time kids get. “Daddy’s old,” they said. For days leading up to, and all day that day, from early morning cartoons until lunch time and beyond, they reminded me.

The abstract of it was lost on them — their father having lived through disco, the fall of communism and a life without cable television.

But they understood the humor of it. Daddy is old … (read more)